"Undoubtedly," said David, "my Lady of Mystery will be there, unless this fall of snow keeps her away."
He paced up and down the study, repeating stray sentences from his sermon, as they came into his mind.
Sarah brought in the lamp, and drew the maroon rep curtains, shutting out the snow and gathering darkness; Sarah, stout, comfortable, and motherly, who—accustomed to the rosy-cheeked plumpness of her easy-going master—looked with undisguised dismay at David's thin worn face, and limbs on which his clothes still hung loosely, giving him an appearance of not belonging to his surroundings, which tried the kind heart and practical mind of the Rector's good housekeeper.
"He do give me the creeps, poor young gentleman," she confided to a friend, who had dropped in for tea and a chat. "To see him all shrunk up, so to speak, in Master's big chair; and just where there would be so much of Master, there's naught of him, which makes the chair seem fair empty. And then he looks up and speaks, and his voice is like music, and his eyes shine like stars, and he seems more alive than Master, or anybody else one knows; yet not alive in his poor thin body; but alive because of something burning and shining hinside of 'im; something stronger than a body, and more alive than life—oh, I don't know!" concluded Sarah, suddenly alarmed by her own eloquence.
"Creepy, I call it," said the friend.
"Creepy it is," agreed Sarah.
Nevertheless she watched carefully over David's creature comforts, and he owed it to Sarah's insistence, that he weighed nearly a stone heavier when he left Brambledene than on his arrival there.
She now brought in tea, temptingly arranged on a tray, poured out his first cup, and stood a minute to watch him drink it, and to exhort him to wrap up well, before going out in this snow.
"My last Sunday, Sarah," said David, looking at her with those same deep-set shining eyes. "I sha'n't bother you much longer. I have a service to-morrow—Christmas-day; and must stay over Boxing-day for two weddings. Then I'm off to town; and in a couple of weeks I sail for Central Africa. I wonder how you would like Africa, Sarah. Are you afraid of snakes?"
"Don't mention 'em, Mr. Rivers, sir," replied Sarah, in a stage whisper; "nasty evil things! If Eve had been as fearful of 'em as I am, there'd never 'ave been no Fall. You wouldn't catch me staying to talk theology with a serpent. No, not me, sir! It's take to m' heels and run, would have been my way, if I'd 'a lived in Genesis three."